Nice show by Joe Girardi, huh? We probably haven’t seen something like that from the Yankees manager in the last 12 and a half years.

And, I think it helped tonight. Motivational people always talk about breaking the patterns of undesired behavior. And, that’s what Joe did in the ninth. Tie game, one-up, Matsui does his job leading off…then A-Rod goes down on strikes and ditto Giambi (with some help from the ump). I truly believe, if Girardi does nothng there…then we see more bad things. Even if Abreu still got the walk without Joe’s act coming before it, Cano, who was having a bad night at the plate, would probably continue to ride the overall negative vibe that was present.

But, Joe does his thing…clears the air, resets the mood, gets the crowd going, ices the O’s pitcher a bit…and, presto! A beautiful win.

I’ll talk about Ian Kennedy tomorrow – he’s part of the story here too. But, for now, this one’s for General Joe.

Um, seriously? I doubt Joe’s tirade had anything to do with Cano getting a hit. Managers always look silly screaming their heads off at umps, and so did Joe, but I loved every minute of it. I also loved the crowd’s reaction.

He gets rewarded by a clutch hit from his second baseman and everyone goes to sleep happy. Cool night.

The important thing is that the two pitchers under intense scrutiny — Kennedy and Farnsworth — both pitched well under pressure.

Sadly this was the first game since the beginning of the season that I was able to watch from start to finish. I’m glad I saw this team pull out a win and saw some frikin fire from the Yankees bench. Maybe this won’t be the best Yankee team in recent memory but it will be an interesting one that should be fun. The tools are their the Yankees have a strong offense that needs to be more consistent and our pitching will be giving us a wild ride. Maybe its time for the Yankees to be taken down a bit and be in the cellar for a few games to get that fire up.

I don’t believe you can say it’s early anymore but I do believe in this Yankee team until the very last day.

Cano would be no professional, let alone an all-star, if he would have “let the negative vibe” effect him.

Alternative glimpse of reality:
Abreu, one of the most selective (some would say passive) hitters in the game, squeezed out a walk. Then Cano got a pitch up on the outer half and laced it into LF for the game winning RBI.